


heliotropism

by cosmoscorpse



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Torture, canon compliant but all prior to dh1, catch me behind the supermarket crying about corvojess, folks its a canonical character death too so theres that, nonlinear storytelling, so jot that down, to be frank this is a story about coldridge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 07:37:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11077020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmoscorpse/pseuds/cosmoscorpse
Summary: The unmaking of Corvo Attano.





	heliotropism

**Author's Note:**

> crossposted from my [tumblr](http://seaborgois.tumblr.com)

 

 

 

> heliotropism: (noun) _the tendency of an animal to move toward light_

 

 

 

It starts like this:

Someone kills the Empress.

  

It is dark in the cell and cold, cold, bitterly cold; except for where his jaw aches from the interrogator’s blow. Except for where hot iron was held to his forearms, to the skin over his heart. He drifts and he keels like an old ship through fog. The voices echo. The iron burns, and the iron burns, and he has not stopped screaming since they brought him here ages and ages and ages ago.

“Confess,” Burrows says, standing in front of him, immaculate and regal and cold, cold, cold. The word falls like a coin from his lips. “Confess, Corvo.”

Like a favor, from his lips. Corvo drags in a ragged breath (cold, cold) bares his teeth, and Burrows sighs. Flicks a hand.

They start again.

 

It starts like -

Someone kills the empress

And -

 

“And just what are you supposed to be?”

He has his papers, in the inner pocket of his coat - and there are copies in the hands of the Serkonan ambassador standing waspish and noble a pace in front of him. The captain isn’t looking at the ambassador, though: his watery grey eyes are fixed on Corvo. Same color as the sky outside. Flat and liquid. The air here is cold, even in the grand entry hall of Dunwall Tower.

The ambassador clears his throat, and answers the captain. “The details are stipulated herein,” he says, his accent trained and clipped. He holds out one of the letters bearing Duke Theodanis Abele’s seal to the captain, “That is for your perusal. The other is for His Imperial Highness the Emperor’s. Captain Attano is at his disposal, and yours as well, by order of the Duke of Serkonos. He is the finest swordsman Karnaca has to offer.”

“A _gift_ ,” the captain says, his voice dragging long and skeptical on the word.

“A gesture of goodwill,” the ambassador says, voice like an oilslick. The letter remains in his outstretched hand, unwavering.

The captain’s upper lip twists in a slight grimace. Corvo’s gaze does not waver from his. After a beat of silence he takes the letter and breaks the wax seal, unfolding the paper trimly, eyes flicking quickly over the contents. His grimace deepens, and he sighs.

“Well.” he says, refolding the letter and tucking it into the breast pocket of his uniform. He smooths the jacket out and sniffs, gazing hawkish down his nose. His voice echoes through the hall. “I suppose everything looks to be in order. We’ll not want to be keeping you from the Emperor’s audience any longer, Lord Ambassador Benneton. If you’ll come with me; I’ll have it seen to that _Mister_ Attano is settled in the barracks.”

The ambassador offers a smile, a well oiled and sharp thing. “Delightful,” he says, and turns to Corvo. “Best of luck to you.”

Corvo inclines his head. The marble floors of the hall are polished to such a keen shine that he can see himself and the captain and the ambassador in them, fleeting shadows. Someone is playing music, deep in the tower.

He is led away.

 

But, no, no, even before that:

Corvo paces the perimeter of the arena, banners and flowers and music and summertime heat all around him. He is sixteen years old, and his opponent is twice his size.

His mother is watching from the stands, her hand over her heart.

Corvo’s lip is bleeding. He has bested three men already. He paces, back to the wall, watching his opponent do the same. The drums pick up.

There is the blade in his hands and it sings, it sings

 

It starts like this:

“It is an honor to meet Your Royal Highness,” he says, his voice low. He bows, eyes averted out of deference, his hand resting over his heart and his other held behind his back. The Crown Princess’ shoes come into his field of view. He does not rise - as is courteous. “I am humbled by your presence.”

“My Lord Protector,” says the Crown Princess - and there is instant clamor in the room.

He looks up, cannot help it, shock like cold water rushing down his spine, _Lord Protector_ -

She smiles, glittering and Imperial, ignoring the murmurs tearing through the room, “The honor is mine.”

 

They start again.

Corvo has seen men flogged before. He is no stranger to the theory - in practice -

They chain his hands, and hang him from a hook on the ceiling. And then - they whip him. When his knees give out (and they do, they do, they do) he drops like a stone, and the bindings cut into his wrists. He swings, and his forearms grow slick with the blood, his mind blank with the _hurt_ of it.

Burrows raises a hand. The interrogator stops, gives him a moment to swing and stumble. His feet slip in the damp underneath him, and he falls again, the short drop yanking hard on his shoulders. He bites down hard on a groan, and forces his lolling head upright. Forces his rolling gaze steady long enough to meet Burrows’ steady stare.

He is _immaculate_. He opens his mouth to speak - to ask him to _confess_ -

“Damn you,” says Corvo, half-choked and gargled - must have bit his tongue, at some point, the blood dribbles out, and he laughs, high and frantic, “ _Fuck_ you, fuck you-“

 

The interrogator trades the whip for a pipe. Corvo screams.

Burrows’ gaze is clinical, cold, when he says, “Break his jaw.”

 

Before all of this, there is the Empress.

  

She pauses halfway through a chord, fingers resting light on the keys. The aborted notes hang in the air, high and sweet, low and mournful, and the candlelight catches on the polished surface of the piano, glimmering. The tune had been halfway familiar. It has been three days since the Crown Princess named him her Lord Protector in front of a crowd of witnesses, and this is the first time that he has been in a room alone with her, at her request.

She turns her head partway toward him, standing silent and a step to the left of the closed door. Retracts her fingers from the keys and folds her hands delicately in her lap.

She says, “So, you are my Lord Protector, then.”

He swallows. “By your will,” he says. He still does not know what prompted her to choose him. He does not know if he ever will. He catches the barest hint of a smile lifting at the corner of her lips before her face turns away from him once more.

“My father disapproves of my choice,” she says, as casually as if she is discussing a turn of the weather. Corvo’s heart turns to stone - surely, if he has attracted the _Emperor’s_ disapproval without having even _met_ him (and that stings somewhat, it does - he still has the Duke’s sealed papers tucked into the bottom of his trunk in the barracks, cast aside for this last _year_ ) then - but the Crown Princess laughs, and she is still speaking, “But it is good, then, that it is _my_ choice. I’ve heard that you were Karnaca’s finest swordsman?”

He swallows again, shifts his weight from one foot to another. He is - unsure how to respond. what to do with her laughter, with the information she has relayed. How to conduct himself in her presence. He knows - enough - about the function of Royal Protectors (histories gleaned through frantic reading into the late hours of the past three evenings) to know that they are not meant to be friends. He clears his throat, finally, says, “That is what they told me.”

She laughs again, and it unsettles something inside his ribcage, a swooping kind of sensation that makes him feel off-balanced, near sea-sick. “So modest,” she says, and raises her hands to the piano once more. Her fingers settle over the keys, and begin plucking melody once more, “Thank you for meeting with me tonight, _Lord_ Attano.”

The dismissal is clear enough. Corvo bows, even though she cannot see it, and murmurs a hasty, “Goodnight, your Grace,” through the tightening vise around his throat. the off-balanced feeling remains heavy on his shoulders. She plays her music, and it follows him even after he closes the door behind him.

  

Before all of this, all of this:

There is Jessamine, Jessamine, Jessamine

 

Burrows breaks his jaw. He doesn’t eat for a week.

 

Jessamine reaches out for him. She takes his hand in her own and she kisses the scars over his knuckles and his heart aches, his heart aches. Sunlight lancing through the window adds gold to her hair. She is beautiful and unreal, eyes like cool water, steady. She is perfect, and he -

“I love you,” he tells her. She smiles, and his heart aches with it. He loves her, he loves her, down to his _marrow_ , he loves her. She smiles, and he reaches up to brush her hair behind the shell of her ear.

“My love,” she says.

 

Corvo is drowning.

There is water in his lungs. The interrogator lets him back up for air, and it tears in his chest. There is not enough, and there is too much, and Corvo is drowning. He can taste iron in the back of his throat. Burrows watches him twitch, bent double on the stone floor, water and blood sliding from his throat in equal measure.

Jessamine is standing there, a step behind Burrows - no, it must be her portrait - only - Jessamine never wore her hair down for any portrait, nor did any artist commissioned paint her so sad-looking. The image of her wavers. Her mouth is moving, she is saying something - only

No, it is Burrows speaking. He asks, “Why did you kill the Empress?”

And Jessamine is speaking too, she asks, “My love, my love, why is this happening?”

Corvo presses his face into the stone, and shakes. He addresses them both, his words quiet and mangled by his torn throat, the water, his ill-healing jaw. He says, “I didn’t,” and “I don’t know, Jessamine, _Jessamine-_ ”

The interrogator takes him by the shoulder, a rough hand at the back of his skull, and pushes him back under.

 

And

  

Jessamine kisses him and steals the breath from his lungs and he is a fool, he is a fool, but he kisses her back in the empty ballroom and he tangles his fingers in her hair and he kisses her and he kisses her and she tastes like brandy and like honey and he is a fool, but this is one thing that he will not, that he cannot regret.

And this, this, this - there is only Jessamine. There has only ever been Jessamine.

 

There is Jessamine, and then -

The child is the smallest, most perfect little creature he has ever seen.  He sits cautiously in the chair at Jessamine’s bedside, staring in wonder at the baby swaddled in her arms. Jessamine’s hair is down, spread ungracefully over her shoulders, and she looks up to smile tiredly at him. She shifts, cautious of the child, to bring herself closer to him.

The child’s eyes are closed. A shock of wispy, curling dark hair peeks out from beneath the blanket. The perfect rosebud mouth opens, stretches into a wide yawn.

“Her name is Emily,” Jessamine says. Corvo presses his hand against his mouth, reaches out to brush the child’s - Emily’s, his _daughter’s_ \- tiny cheek with his thumb.

“She’s beautiful,” he says, voice quiet and wavering. He knows his eyes are wet when he looks up to meet Jessamine’s gaze. He laughs, smiles openly, unashamedly. “She looks like you.”

“ _Corvo_ ,” Jessamine says, fondly, softly, “She looks like _you_.”

 

The gulls cry out.

It is a cold day, a stiff breeze blowing in from the harbor.

Dunwall Tower rises high above the dark waters of the Wrenhaven.

Someone kills the Empress.

  

“You can’t be serious,” he says.

Jessamine shakes her head. “Please don’t argue with me on this matter,” she says, rubbing tiredly at her temple.

Corvo’s hands feel restless at his sides. Clenched into fists. Jessamine won’t look at him. “Jessamine, please,” he begs, “I’m your _Protector_. Send someone else.”

“There is no one else I trust,” she says.

“I don’t _care_ ,” he snaps, “I won’t leave you. Please, _please_ , _don’t make me._ ”

She is silent.

“ _Jessamine_ ,” he says. Watches her inhale sharply, swirl the whiskey at the bottom of her glass.

“Your ship leaves in the morning,” she says, finally, “You should say goodbye to Emily tonight, before you go.”

Corvo closes his eyes, clenches his jaw. “As you wish, your Grace,” he says, smoothing the hurt from his voice. He bows sharply, departs before she can say anything else - the last he sees before the door to her study swings shut is her staring hard at the surface of her desk.

 

“Where is Lady Emily?” Burrows asks, “Where have you hidden her away?”

“I haven’t,” Corvo says. Burrows waves a hand, and the hammer is brought down on his pinky finger. He screams, and Burrows waits for him to stop before he speaks again.

“You are making this more difficult for yourself, Corvo,” he says, “We will pry the truth from you eventually. Why did you kill the Empress?”

“I _didn’t_ ,” Corvo says, desperation rising in his throat. He sees the interrogator raise the hammer again and he flinches away as much as he is able to in the chair, his heart pounding like a fearful wild thing in his chest. The hammer comes down. Corvo screams again.

“She trusted you. Why did you betray her?” a note of irritation has crept into Burrows’ tone, Corvo marvels through the haze of delirium. The interrogator sets the hammer down, works on pulling Corvo’s fingers back into a semblance of correct anatomy - this is no kindness, no thought for treatment, and he’ll never hold a sword in his left hand again, he thinks, gritting his teeth and groaning through the process. The interrogator twists his ring finger and he hears something snap. Shards of bone grinding against each other. “Corvo. What possessed you to betray her?”

“I didn’t,” Corvo gasps, cringing away from the ruin of his left hand, his whole body straining against the chair, “I didn’t, I didn’t-”

“You _killed_ her-” Burrows snaps, his voice rising in accusation, and Corvo could weep.

“I _couldn’t_ ,” he screams, jerking against his bonds. There is something warm and damp on his cheeks, and his vision swims and oh, oh - he is weeping, “I couldn’t have, I couldn’t have - I would have sooner torn out my own throat can’t you fucking _see_ that, I would have sooner died-”

“ _Shut your damned mouth,_ ” Burrows shouts, and Corvo falls silent for the shock of it.

Watches him raise a shaking hand to turn off the audiograph machine on his desk. “Leave us,” he says to the interrogator, who dips into a bow and then does, the door clicking shut behind him. Corvo’s ruined hand aches. His throat feels raw. Burrows is shaking, his skin blotched red and pale with - frustration? rage?

Jessamine stands behind him. Her hair is down, and her feet are bare. She has been weeping. Corvo tries to reach out for her, is stopped by the manacles.

He swallows. When he speaks, his voice sounds very small. “I couldn’t have,” Corvo says, “I - don’t you see? I loved her - I loved her. I couldn’t have.”

“You’ve lost your mind,” Burrows says without looking at him, his hands clenched tight at the end of his desk. Behind him, Jessamine tilts her head, her mouth pressed into a thin, unhappy line. Corvo cannot breathe. He can’t look away from her.

“I loved her,” Corvo says again, swallowing hard, stumbling over himself, “Please, I loved her, and Emily is - if, if you don’t believe me there were - there were - we wrote letters - she kept all of, she told me she kept all of them-”

“I know,” Burrows says, and Corvo’s breath catches in his throat, “I burned them.”

The pain in his hand is throbbing up his entire arm. It makes it hard to think - for a moment Corvo is unsure if he heard Burrows correctly.

“You,” he starts, “No, why would you - did you read them?”

“Yes,” Burrows says.

“And - you _burned_ them?” he asks. Horror and grief swells in him like a terrible wave.

“Yes,” Burrows says. He still hasn’t looked up.

“ _Why_ ,” Corvo gasps, jerking hard at his manacles, mindless of the agony it sends burning through his left arm, “You read them, you read them and you _burned_ them - you know I didn’t kill her-” how could he have? She was everything - his sun and moon, the stars and all the seas beneath - _everything -_

“I know,” Burrows agrees simply. He sounds - weary.

“I’m no liar,” Corvo snarls.

“What you _are_ ,” Burrows says, “Is a damned fool.”

“I didn’t kill her!-”

“I _know!_ ” Burrows snaps. He slaps his hand against the desk, hard, “You _fucking_ fool, I know -”

He visibly bites back his words and falls silent. Jessamine’s ghost tilts her head again, presses her hand against her chest, where the blade had gone in. Understanding dawns on Corvo like cold, cold water trickling down his spine.

“The assassin,” Corvo whispers, his eyes wide. Burrows flinches. “You hired him.”

He says nothing.

“You _know_ where Emily is,” Corvo says, “Don’t you.”

His mouth twists into a grimace. That is answer enough.

He would scream if he had the breath. He feels as though he is sinking in deep water. “I’ll kill you,” he promises.

 

It goes like -

 

_It is a fair wind that brings you home to me_

 

Corvo cannot remember the man’s face - only the red of his coat, and the red on his blade. Emily had been screaming, and Jessamine had been screaming, and he would have been too if only he had the breath for it - and then the only sound had been the gulls crying, and Jessamine gasping, scrabbling at her chest, at the marble floor.

There is only Jessamine, Jessamine, Jessamine -

He _drags_ himself to her, finds his breath sticking in his chest like _he’d_ been dealt the blow - not -

Her blood leaks through his fingers. A tiny, terrible noise tears from her throat when he presses down - the wound is bad, but if he can just keep the _pressure_ on it until - until -

“ _Corvo_ ,” she gasps, fear bright in her shining eyes, “It’s all - falling apart.”

“It’s okay,” he says, pulling her closer, running his shaking free hand over her hair, numbness creeping up through his chest - he should have - it should be _him_ \- “It’s okay, _shh_ , I’m here.”

“ _Corvo-_ ” she says, reaching blindly for his hand, “Corvo?”

And then -

 

It starts with this:

“Leave us,” Jessamine says to her attendants, early morning light shining through the panes of her room’s windows, bright and clear. Her hair is down and she is still in her nightgown. She smiles softly at Corvo, and when the last maid clears from the room and the door shuts firmly behind her she boldly steps forward until there is hardly a breath of space between them.

“Good morning, your Grace,” he says.

He had kissed her the night before - he is unsure of how to conduct himself now. He settles on reaching for her hand, ghosting a gentle kiss over her knuckles. It is a good choice; she laughs, tightening her hold on his hand.

“You can call me by my name, Corvo,” she softly, reaching up to cup his cheek, “I would like it if you did.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! as always i can be found [here](http://seaborgois.tumblr.com)


End file.
